Book Reviews

Title: A Quiet Reality
Author: Emilio Marrero
Genre: Non-Fiction, Spiritual/Religious
Reviewer: jim greenwald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0788026178

A Quiet Reality is a heartwarming and hopeful story that invites you to join Chaplain Marrero in this exciting journey through Iraq as he ministered to U.S. Marines. Join him through an exhilarating tactical convoy during his first night in Iraq, through the painful ministry to the wounded and dead. Reflect with him as he ponders on this quest as a man in uniform and a pastor. Walk with him through the ancient ruins of Nebuchadnezzar's Palace in Babil and join him on an exciting quest to open biblical history to his Marines while he seeks to care for the Iraqis around him. A Quiet Reality is a hopeful commentary on a selfless quest to be true to ones faith and one's calling in the most trying of times. A wonderful Christian inspirational story that provides deep insight into how Americans and Iraqis touched one another.

Title: The Military Father: A Hands-on Guide for Deployed Dads
Author: Armin Brott
Genre: Non-Fiction, Reference
Reviewer: Pat McGrath Avery

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0789210312

Fathers today play a greater role with their families and children than ever before. However, military dads and dads-to-be are often separated from their families for extended periods of time. Unfortunately, there are very few resources for military (and deployed civilian) fathers, who are looking for guidance on how to be in close touch with their families back home. THE MILITARY FATHER, written by the country's leading authority on fatherhood, will fill that gap, providing deployed dads with everything they need to know to stay (or become) involved with and connected to their family regardless of the distance that separates them.

Part I of this essential sourcebook covers pre-deployment and explores the profound effect a dad's absence will have on his spouse, his children, and himself. It also provides extensive pre-deployment checklists and detailed tips aimed at preparing the dad and his family for separation and long-distance communication. Part II, During Deployment, explains how to stay involved and connected when you're far away, and includes specific strategies and activities designed to help dads and their family remain close across time and distance. Part III, Coming Home, offers advice on post-deployment times from preparing to come home and surmounting the challenges of returning to military or civilian life. In addition, the book includes a chapter on how dads can support a spouse when she's the one being deployed, and a comprehensive listing of resources available to soldiers and their families.

Flavored with the author's trademark wit, warmth, and intelligence, this guide combines a wealth of knowledge from experts, scientific studies, and interviews with scores of military fathers and their families.

THE MILITARY FATHER includes cartoons that complement the text, solicited from deployed military or civilian fathers and family members, ranging from those on active duty to veterans.

Title: The Politics and Security of the Gulf: Anglo-American Hegemony and the Shaping of a Region
Author: Jeffrey Macris
Genre: Non-Fiction, Reference
Reviewer: Bob Doerr

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0415778719

The United States and its military have fought in three hot wars in the Persian Gulf over the past generation -- the Iran-Iraq War, Desert Storm, and Operation Iraqi Freedom -- but what do we know about what brought our nation to this turbulent and unforgiving region? "The Politics and Security of the Gulf," written by a Permanent Military Professor at the U.S. Naval Academy, looks at two centuries of Persian Gulf history, and how the armies and navies of Great Britain and the United States have shaped the region. The book examines how both London and Washington's leaders tended to three enduring missions in the Gulf: maintaining interstate order, protecting trade, and keeping out other Great Powers. For over a century Britain did this with a relatively modest amount of power -- primarily naval -- while drawing upon its vast Indian army when needed. After World War II, however, the loss of Britain's empire ultimately forced London to withdraw, and the last of its ships and aircraft withdrew from inside the Strait of Hormuz in 1971. Offered the keys to British military bases, the Americans declined to replace the British as security guarantors for the Gulf. In the vacuum that followed, two decades of political, economic, and military chaos ensued: the 1973 oil crisis, the fall of the Shah, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that portended a possible further thrust toward the Gulf, the Iran-Iraq war, and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. After each of these foreign policy catastrophes, the United States took an incremental step toward the region. When Washington elected to set up a permanent military presence in the Gulf following 1991's Desert Storm, the U.S. essentially had assumed the same missions that the British had fulfilled in the 19th and 20th centuries: maintaining interstate order, protecting trade, and keeping out other Great Powers.

Title: MST: Military Sexual Trauma
Author: Miette Wells
Genre: Non-Fiction, Reference
Reviewer: Bob Doerr

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1466280808

Military Sexual Trauma is a traumatic event from which many victims never fully recover. There is a uniqueness to MST which separates it from other traumas, even other sexual traumas. This book is the result of personal experience and research into the reality of thousands of US soldiers, past and present that encountered MST.

MST: Military Sexual Trauma provides an introspective and eye-opening look into a world that few survive unscarred.

Miette Wells joined the Air Force after high school in 1987 with an aspiration for a career in the military. Like so many others her ambitions were bashed when she has her first encounter with MST. After her military memoir authorship, Crossing the Blue Code and Beyond The Blue Code, numerous accounts of similar experiences flooded her email inbox. She decided there is much more she can do to bring MST to the knowledge of the general public.

Title: A Retailer's Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions
Author: Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Genre: Non-Fiction, How To
Reviewer: jim greenwald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1441467246

Retailers need more than crossed fingers to get and keep customers. In-store promotion--everything from in-store branding to events--is the most effective and economical way to do that. This book gives retailers the benefit of Carolyn Howard-Johnson's nearly three decades experience as founder and manager of her own chain of stores, a stint as a New York publicist and as a retail consultant and journalist. It is the first in the Survive and Thrive series for retailers in her USA Book News award-winning HowToDoItFrugally.com books.